Banned Books Week

Parents challenging schools and books for required reading is nothing new.  It happens here quite a bit and sometimes the parental opinion is based on an online review, not the actual reading of a book.  Rather like when my generation would turn in a book report based on a Classic Comic rather than the actual book.

Never, however, did I expect to see a week designated as Banned Books Week.  But yes.  There is one and it's an annual event sponsored by the American Booksellers Association, the American Library Association and the PEN Center, among other similar associations.  It is designed to draw attention to banned books.  It is marketing the written word in a most unconventional manner.

If it gets people to buy books and read them I guess it isn't all bad.  It seems a shame there is a need for it but then it's a shame some feel a need to ban a book in the first place.

Over the years some of the great classics have fallen prey to zealous critics.  Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn often make the lists.  Little Red Riding Hood because  she was carrying wine as one of the refreshments in her picnic basket.

The Diary of A Young Girl  by Anne Frank because it is a real 'downer'. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz because it described witches, at least some of them, as good. From Grimm's Fairy Tales the story of Snow White because she almost gets killed by a corset and Cinderella because her step sisters cut off parts of their own feet.  Grimm indeed.

For the older set there's The Grapes of Wrath because some thought fictional residents of a real county weren't flattering. Gone With The Wind for Scarlett's immoral behavior and Fahrenheit 451 for the use of an expletive considered blasphemous.

My what starched and proper lives those who would ban books must live.  Without a touch of reality. And they wish to impose it on others not quite so saintly.

Perhaps the most ludicrous of all is the dictionary.  Yep.  Because it has all the words in it including (gasp) sexual definitions! Well, someone had to read it to know that.  My guess is that the 'definition of' is as close to sex as many have ever gotten!  I do wonder, though, how they justified having kids.

The one book I didn't find on the lists is the Bible.  Heck, it has it all of the above under one cover!  I don't imagine the booksellers would be too keen on that if the word gets out.

What In The Name Of GOD??

I hadn't quite finished my coffee this morning so I picked up the current issue of Arizona Highways. Hub said, "Inside the back cover." I turned to the story; a memorial to a young soldier who had written to the magazine asking if they would send copies to his unit to give them something to read and remind them of home.

The staff was so taken by the young soldier's humility and concern for his friends they sent far more then magazines and soon they had a special bond - plus an inside perspective of what war was like in Afghanistan. He was killed January 10, 2010. I was wiping my eyes by the time I finished reading. They were grieving because they would now never meet this young man to say a heart felt "thank you", not only for serving his country but what he gave them.

It reminded me of my own GI who picked up one of many Christmas cards I had sent to his unit, several years ago now. You know, one of those special requests that come around the holidays. He was serving in Iraq. We too have a special bond, a warmth that embraces me, even though we've never met.

The stories of these soldiers brought to mind the story of the father of a young Marine who is suing a group of protesters that invaded the privacy of his son's funeral.

We know people protest any and everything these days. There is something so ugly about this, however, I'm finding it difficult to articulate how I feel. This group is claiming first amendment freedom as they spew their hate. The Supreme Court is going to hear the case. Chief Justice John Roberts has shown in recent days, due to his flap with the President from the State of the Union incident, that he understands the frustration of humiliation.

Beyond the legalities of these actions, is the vileness of them done in the name of God. These people claim to be Baptists and most are relatives of the founder, one Fred W. Phelps, Sr. A crotchety old man who is reveling in the publicity for his cause - spreading hate.

It's hard to grasp how deep this hatred for Catholics and Gays, and who knows what else, runs! How twisted are minds that think the war is "divine retribution" for America's sins!

It's will be a fine line for the Supreme Court to deal with. In the meantime, it seems to me the Baptist Church should denounce this congregation at the very least or forbid them to claim the Baptist Church before it is diminished by their actions.

Short of that they should all be placed under psychiatric observation. No one that hates so deeply they use the funerals of fallen servicemen, those who have died serving their country, to get their message front and center can be considered sane.

It is beneath contempt.

History - Fact Or Fiction?

We've all heard of revisionist history; we all know that Iran's President Ahmedinejad denies the Holocaust ever happened. We know that people without sufficient background for the task are often asked to approve or disapprove books our children have access to in schools. One off none of this may seem important but, you know, I believe it is.

When people with agendas begin meddling in what can and cannot be taught, history gets skewed. What do we know of it unless we've actually lived it? Hearsay. It goes back as far as the written word. The Bible in all it's incarnations. Parables confused with fact. Or not so confused if one has an agenda other than teaching or learning.

The disturbing thing is how manipulation is being used to this day. A controversy is ongoing in Texas right now regarding what should and should not be included in their social studies curriculum. When I think about it I couldn't begin to tell you what my 11 and 13 year old nieces believe to be history. I would be willing to wager it's not quite the same as what I was taught.

Here are a few of the recommendations from Texas as reported on the texasinsider.org site.

1st grade: In the section on holidays it removes Veterans' Day and Independence Day. The 4th of July? On customs it removes the anthems and motto's of Texas and the U.S. and from patriotic symbols it removes the Liberty Bell.

3rd grade: Removes a children's biography of Stephen F. Austin.

High school: Removes John Locke's Two Treatises of Government and English common law and changes the phrase "Free enterprise system" to "capitalist system".

Presidents Roosevelt and Eisenhower were referred to as "dead white guys" in discussions on phasing them out and not adding any more.

Needless to say there has been tremendous push back on these recommendations. Thank heavens. But I can see where such could pass virtually unnoticed in the not too distant future. What with the blurring of reality in movie embodiments of history, writers, actors, producers lending their own slant and photo shop altering any and everything, perhaps one day we will have no history at all. Existence will be nothing more than an epic work of fiction. Reality will be but for a fleeting moment.

So. As Bob Schrum said about Obama today in a conversation with Andrea Mitchell, he needs to stand before us and tell us just who he is. Why? It will all be altered anyway. There will be no truth.

Will the real Davy Crockett please stand up? Did he even exist?

What's Wrong With An Educational Read?

There are times I'm glad I have no children needing an education in the Coeur d'Alene schools. They wouldn't be getting a well rounded one.

Once again the controversy of allowable books for class room study has reared it's ugly head. Leading the way are a group of parents who feel educators don't have the insight into which books have a learnable point as they do. Why the school board caves into their wishes is beyond me.

The last time around I actually went to the library and checked out Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. I would want my high schooler to read it. I would want every every young man and woman who lives in lily white northern Idaho to read it. They would get a glimpse what it was like growing up black in the South in the 40s. They weren't the days that gave us Barack and Michelle Obama to be sure. Though literature depicting their time should also be read. Why? Because the times that spawned Ms. Angelou gave us Ms. Angelou.

Another is "Snow Falling On Cedars". It reflects the anti-Japanese sentiment and prejudices following World War II. You wouldn't want your kids to know about that, now would you!

That parents want to instill values in their children is admirable. Shielding them from unpleasant truths is not. Sexual situations, violence and profanity that appears in books is a reflection of real life. Kids know it. Kids are involved in all of it! Especially kids of the age that would be reading these books in school. If the parents don't recognize this, they are more at fault than the educators choosing the books.

One concerned parent had this to say, "My concern is that an ad hoc committee, and a small group of vocal citizens were essentially able to remove four of those recommended novels from the the list." Kudos to you, sir!

Another parent, on the other side of the argument, had this to say, "I'm glad about this recommendation, but...I just want to be sure the other books are not being used for educational purposes..."

I see a huge disconnect here. What are the books to be used for other than educational purposes? Who wins here? A narrow minded group who feel their thinking is the only thinking that should be considered.

Who loses? The children and the community. It leads to a dictated mind set - narrow. Having lived here far too long, I find it the prevailing mind set. Why else would the school board endorse the process such as it is? Caving to special interests serves no one well.

In this day of Twitter and Facebook, blogging and everything else available on the Internet, these very same kids have access to everything the ad hoc committee is fighting. Someone has their head in the sand. It's not the youngsters. That leaves the school board and those who dictate to them.

Ban The Books Or Those Who Do The Banning?

There are times, in this wondrous world of blogging, truly strange things happen.

Back in November I wrote a post on a conflict over a book that was proposed to be banned in the Coeur d'Alene School District, Huxley's Brave New World, and how it parallelled the reality of today.

Last month I received an e-mail from a member of the National Coalition Against Censorship thanking me for that post and encouraging me to continue blogging about similar happenings. The very same day a letter-to-the-editor appeared in the Coeur d'Alene Press from a member of the "Novel Ad Hoc Committee for the Coeur d'Alene School District" stating her reasons for not approving several books given for review. To sum it up, the letter ended saying, "No folks, it's not censoring. IT'S CALLED PARENTING".

She used a statement taken from Wikipedia quoting in part from the Coalitions own web site telling of books that had been banned and why.

On one book she asked an acquaintance his opinion. He read a few pages and dissed it as did she on that basis. She chose a second book and decided to check it out on the web. Wikipedia. That's where she found the Coalition's remarks. I doubt she ever visited their site. Okay. I was appalled. Refuse a book not read by comments on Wikipedia and call it parenting.

The book? Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I had not read it either so I went to the library and checked it out.

Here is what Wikipedia and the Coalition said, according to her letter:

...parents and schools have objected to "Caged Bird's" depiction of lesbianism, premarital cohabitation, pornography and violence. Some have been critical of the book's sexually explicit scenes, use of language and religious depiction.

Wow, I thought, I'm in for quite a read. Until I started. It is the autobiographical recollections of Maya Angelou from the time she was three years old when she and her four year old brother were shipped from Long Beach, CA to Stamps, Arkansas to be raised by their Grandmother.

It is a grueling and beautifully written recollection of what life was like during the depression years in the black community of a small southern town. The hardships, the pecking order, the brutal prejudices and the killings that sometimes resulted. It takes you with her for a stay with her mother in St. Louis where she was first fondled sexually and finally raped by her mother's boyfriend. He was later found kicked to death.

This is how life was. This is how her life was. It goes on. She and her brother return to Sparks for a time and finish their schooling. Both were avid readers, reading books far more advanced in their childhood years than most of our high schoolers read today. Poe. Shakespeare.

After her graduation from 8th grade the children return to California. She spent some time with her father who turned out to be a womanizing drunk, ran away and lived for a month with a group of runaways. They had more sense of community than most adults. They pooled what money they had for the benefit of the entire group and kept the sexes segregated.

Back with her mother she continues her education and as any girl in her early teens would do, searched for her self. After having read The Well of Loneliness, a book written in the late 20s, a depiction of lesbians searching for acceptance, and being less developed than her peers she began to wonder if something was wrong with her. She had the misconception that lesbians might be hermaphrodites and that she too might be one especially having seen a friend, more fully developed than she, naked and was fascinated.

To cement her "womanhood", in her mind, she offered herself to a neighbor boy and ended up pregnant. Now here is where actual parenting actually came into play! She was asked if he wanted to marry her. No. Did she want to marry him? No. Good. Two lives not ruined. She kept the baby. The book ended at that point of time in her life. She was 16, maybe 17.

Nothing in the book was salacious, nor the least bit titillating. It was how the girl, as she grew, saw her life and that around her. I found nothing approaching pornography, no graphic depictions of violence, no overt lesbianism. Premarital cohabitation was the way it was as was the religious depiction. Today's movies, television and the public beach have far more graphic depictions and foul language than anything in this book.

There is nothing in the book that today's teen would find shocking. What they will find is how blacks were thought of and treated in historical and geographical context during the Depression and on into the War.

That a person chosen to review a book chooses not to read the book, to make a judgements from an ill conceived write up on Wikipedia and in that misuse a Coalition that fights censorship is beyond my comprehension.

One can only wonder how this Ad Hoc Committee is chosen. This is not parenting. This is an abrogation of responsibility.

The Written Word is Worth 10,000 Pictures ~ Dogwalk Musings

On the 10th of November I wrote a
post regarding a split vote by the Coeur d'Alene school board as to whether or not Brave New World should be required reading. The decision was put on hold until the fifth member of the board could vote and break the tie.

The issue is once again in the headlines. It got me to thinking about what our school age children do read, required or not. Have you looked at the current crop of "comic" books on the market? Or what is readily available on the Internet; even in the public library and book stores? Or let's look at the newspapers. What are they filled with? Murder, robberies, rape, child molestation, an eighth year old who killed his father. It's all out there. And don't tell me that kids don't see it when every time I stop our papers for a vacation I'm asked if I'd like to donate them to the schools. They aren't lining bird cages with them.

Maybe current events is more important then reading and understanding great literature. It doesn't seem to resonate though. Look at the man on the street questions about the recent elections. The answers make Sarah Palin look like a member of MENSA.

I have yet to understand why some of these books haven't had permanent approval but then I'm not up on scholastic politics. Here are a few that are up for review. For eleventh grade - Catcher in the Rye, Death of a Salesman, The Grapes of Wrath, The Great Gatsby and The Scarlett Letter.

A few from the 12th grade list - 1984, Frankenstein, Anthem and Slaughterhouse Five.

One parent complained her ninth grade daughter was uncomfortable reading two books because they contained profanity and sexually explicit situations. I've got a hot flash for that parent. You're ninth grade daughter is already familiar with both or she's not living in the real world.

What's next? Banning Shakespeare? Look at the subject matter of Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet.

One of the naysayers found Brave New World to be "repetitious" in descriptions of a "society gone amok with no feelings". After saying that the book was filled with descriptions of promiscuous sex and naked bodies, he also added the book wasn't "that well written." I wonder if he actually read the book or just skimmed it for its prurient parts like we did with paper backs when I was a kid!

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." attributed to Mark Twain. Quiz. Which part of that statement applies to the school board and which to the students that are to be denied? Of course we know Mark Twain hasn't escaped the critics eye either. Consider Huckleberry Finn.

It may be me, but I think the requirements to serve on the school board could use a review. If they are to review classic works of literature for students to read, they might first read the books and write a report themselves to make sure they understand the premise.

As for the language or descriptiveness, what better way to understand it's context than under the supervision of a teacher?

This story has yet to play out. I'm not encouraged about how it will end. I fear next they will march on our local book stores and pull copies of Mudgie and Millie because it tells the story of an unnatural relationship between a moose and a mouse!

Brave New World: The Book Versus The Reality

Once again Coeur d'Alene, touted as a great place to live in a myriad of publications, has made dubious regional headlines. Two out of four school board members voted to ban Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" yet are giving consideration for a police request to bring high powered rifles into the schools "just in case". The book issue will be readdressed at the next meeting when a fifth member will be present. Whew!

One of the dissenters put it this way, "I find, from my own level, it is extremely repetitious and it drives in the sexuality issues and other civilization's issues to almost ad nauseam and I find it's balance is extremely lacking." This sentence, if you can call it such, delivered by a member of the school board. It's even more frightening then the rifles.

The attempt to ban books in this community is nothing new. The people making the determination is indicative of the mind set of decision makers throughout the community. Informed? Open? Not nearly often enough.

It made me realize there are a great many parallels between the world of Huxley's future and our present. If I had more respect for the intellect of the person who made the above statement, I'd fear that he too sees the parallels and wants the book banned to prevent students from "catching on". However, I do not.

"Brave New World" depicts a world society controlled by a powerful few. All have been created in a lab according to a strictly predetermined caste system. Existence revolves around material comfort and drug enhanced recreational sex.

As in any good story there are the heros and heroines. Those whose test tube formulas didn't work exactly as planned. As a result they grew into the malcontents with ambitions far exceeding allowable limits.

The characters lives get intertwined and the story more complex than I want to get into here, but in essence, a foray into the "other place" brings about an awakening. Each in their own way, the heros ultimately face judgement from the head honcho who acknowledges the flaws of the world he rules but decrees that the loss of freedom and individuality are a small price to pay for stability. Some suffered exile while the last ultimately committed suicide. Don't rock the boat! Don't question! Accept. Smoke something funny, sit back and enjoy.

On a less futuristic scale it reminds me of how our city and county government are run. The Alphas. Those who cater to their every whim be it right or wrong. No discussion. The Betas. If one tries to engage in discussion one is demonized. The malcontents searching for honest answers. They themselves sometimes get fuzzy, bogging down on process rather than reason.

When the President of North Idaho College writes that there is no evacuation plan for her school which sits akin to a waste water treatment facility where chlorine is stored, that they depend on city and county officials to effect such in case of emergency, I wonder.

Where these very same public safety officials have neither the manpower nor the equipment required to evacuate the high rises they insist on building, I wonder.

Where the prosecutor's office was under investigation for pornographic e-mail circulation, I wonder.

Huxley wrote this book after a visit to America back in the thirties. He was disturbed by what he saw; what is now the "me" generation. An obsession with materialism and promiscuity of mind and spirit. Back in the 1930s!

"Brave New World Revisited" was written by Huxley almost thirty years after "Brave New World" as non-fiction. In it he considered whether the world had moved toward or away from his vision. He concluded that the world was becoming much more like "Brave New World" much faster than he anticipated. Not a comforting thought. Not to worry though. If you can't read it you'll have nothing to ponder.

However, if your curiosity has been aroused you might like to read both. Then you can determine if life imitates art or just the opposite. I'm sure the library has copies. And the book stores.